the lost seraphim - virgil the doom poet

Filename: seraph.zip

File size: 2.5MB

Author: Virgil the Doom Poet

Homepage: www.geocities.com/virgil_32_0

Other work: Dark Castle, Ash to Ash, ADSPP, Bloodsport

Work just keeps on piling on my head. It's taken me several months
to get around to writing this review, and that's not at all due to my
own laziness. On to the levels instead of whinging, now. There are
four levels in this add-on, which are fairly self-explanatory to play,
and have splendid architecture in them. (Not that we expect anything
less from the good poet.) The use of great heights is spectacular,
lending a slightly surreal air to the whole collection. Indeed, it
is like no other WAD I have played in its atmospheric elements.

If you hate seeking out keys and switches and believe the whole affair
to over-complicate gameplay, you will love these maps. The accessibility
of the maps' structures depends on you killing all the monsters in one
particular area, then when you have done that, the door/section in
question opens up and you get the chance to slaughter lots more
monsters. As is often the case in Virgil's maps, there are a lot of them.
Two new super-weapons have been included; they replace weapons 6 and 7.
The Seraphim's Punch kills any enemy with just one or two punches (good
if you can get close enough, may be tricky on cyber-demons). The
Seraphim's Light is an extremely potent ball of holy light which does
serious damage to the enemy, however the catch is that you could probably
outrun it walking! Whatever you do, DON'T switch to weapon 1 (the fist)
and use it. What happens next is frustrating beyond belief.



No bugs.

The æsthetics are very varied; communicating a real sense of place between
the four levels (each of which has a different but connected theme.) [I'm
going on a side-line now, but the opposite to æsthetics are anæsthetics -
if you made something in reversed colours, would it make you pass out?]
From the clean, cool tech-base of map01, to the peculiarities inside the
portal of map02, to the enormous lake in Hell in map03, to Satan's fortress
in map04. Map02, incidentally, makes great use of scrolling floors to move
you along really really quickly, and often in circles. The vertical motion
in parts may induce motion sickness if you're not careful. That's a fairly
minor complaint though. The very final scene in map04 is very spectacular
indeed - it's fortunate that there are invulnerability artifacts around,
otherwise the architecture and surroundings would distract you from killing
Satan, thereby allowing him to win by unfair means.

Thing placement: good, thoughtful. Well done.

verdict